


one shadow in the same light

by Yersina



Series: leap before you look [4]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Developing Friendships, Gen, Threats of Violence, mayhaps this counts as found family??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28587237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yersina/pseuds/Yersina
Summary: Chan waits for Jisung to scamper out of the room, pulling Jeongin with him, before stepping closer to Minho and lowering his voice until he’s fairly certain Changbin can’t eavesdrop—not that it would matter if he did. “I’m sure you know at this point that I don’t trust you,” he says quietly. Minho only blinks at him, but his lips twitch like he’s resisting a smile. “It seems like Jisung does, so I’m willing to put my faith in you, but I’ll kill you myself if any one of us gets hurt.”“I expect nothing less,” Minho murmurs back. If nothing else, at least they have this point of understanding.
Relationships: Bang Chan & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Minsung if you squint - Relationship
Series: leap before you look [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799347
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	one shadow in the same light

**Author's Note:**

> hello i’m back with more from this verse!! 
> 
> this fic takes place directly after the thing with feathers, and probably won’t make sense if you don’t read that one first.

Even on the good days, Chan is fairly certain that Jisung is certifiably insane.

He trusts Jisung to the ends of the earth—trusts him with his secrets, his life, and his team—but he knows that Jisung is prone to impulsive decisions and is the type to leap before it occurs to the rest of them that jumping is even an option. It’s what makes him a brilliant teammate, but to say that it’s caused Chan more than one headache would be an understatement. It’s why he doesn’t immediately shoot the haunted young man who returns with Jisung when he gets back from the warehouse, and it’s also why he signals for Changbin to start a background check. If it turns out that he’s a threat despite Jisung’s instincts, well... To say that Chan would never forgive himself is putting it lightly.

Once Jisung files in after his new tag-along, it takes some quick talking before any of them relax enough to lower their weapons. Chan keeps one hand on his gun as Jeongin pats the newcomer down, even as Jisung rolls his eyes violently on the sidelines, arms crossed over his chest. “Don’t you think I would’ve done that already,” he complains. “I left his rifle and knives in the trunk of my car if you’re so interested in them.”

“Osaka, March of last year,” Seungmin says with a raised eyebrow that Chan spots out of the corner of his eye.

“That—he—hey,” Jisung sputters, looking betrayed. “It was _one_ knife.”

“One knife too many,” Hyunjin chimes in delightedly. Jisung just groans.

“He’s clean,” Jeongin declares, standing up from where he was patting around the guy’s ankles and stretching. “Hyung actually did a good job this t—” 

All of them freeze when the guy shifts, immediately on high alert. He slowly reaches up towards his ear, removing his earring with deliberate movements and extending it to Jeongin with an open palm. “Poison,” he explains. “A capsule in the stud itself.” 

Chan’s eyes dart over to Jisung, who’s visibly gnawing on his lower lip. It’s a mind game, really—Jisung spent an entire car ride perfectly fine, clearly, and ridding himself of what seems to be a fail safe is a daring show of trust, but all it does is emphasize how much they don’t know about this person. What else could he be hiding that they don’t know about?

“Thank you,” he says, before the situation can get more out of hand, and steps forward to take the earring so he can nudge Jeongin back. 

Up close, the earring seems to be a simple circle of black stone, engraved shallowly with a design that faintly rings a bell from when Jisung was showing him files and research on who he thought their tail might be. “Ah,” he says, and the sharp but delicate features of Lee Minho slot into place in his mind. “I thought you looked familiar. Lee Minho, is it?” He doesn’t miss how Minho’s eyes dart to Jisung at that. 

“Yes.” 

Chan hums, rolling the earring between his fingers. The insignia of Kim Ilseong doesn’t cross his path very often, but when it does, it never fails to make his stomach churn. “Do I need to be worried about anyone showing up on my doorstep?”

Minho hesitates. “I don’t have any trackers on me.” 

Chan doesn’t like that at all. “Answer the question.” If there’s even a hint of danger, Minho will be taking the fall, Jisung’s impulses be damned.

“I’m already—I was—behind on this assignment,” Minho says, and Chan catches his eyes going to Jisung again. “I have another check-in scheduled for tomorrow, and it would probably take them a day or two after that to track you to this location.”

Somewhere behind him, Chan hears Changbin bite off a curse. “I see,” he says.

Jisung winces and raises his hands apologetically. “If I knew—”

“It would’ve happened anyway,” Chan says with a wry smile. He doesn’t say ‘it’s okay’ because they both know that Chan’s first priority is always, _always_ their team’s safety and that he absolutely hates anything that puts that in jeopardy, but it’s close enough to forgiveness that Jisung relaxes. “Hyunjin—”

“On it,” Hyunjin interrupts before Chan can say anything else, and disappears into his bedroom. Seungmin and Felix slip away after him not a second later, and Chan knows that they’ll have all of their bags packed within the hour.

Minho’s eyes follow the sudden flurry of movement but snap back to Chan when he shifts his weight. Chan stares back steadily, wondering what his next move should be. His first few strays after Jisung and Changbin were people that he already trusted, people that he’d worked with for years who he knew did good work and kept their mouths shut regardless of money. He doesn’t _do_ this sort of thing, doesn’t like the idea of converting people to his side if they weren’t already there to begin with, and he doesn’t like having a wild card in their midst. “What would happen if I leave you here to face the consequences?”

“Hyung!” Jisung protests immediately. Chan just gives him a look, sighing internally when Jisung frowns at him. He’ll get an earful for that later. 

Minho looks at the corner of the coffee table for a second before his eyes flicker back to Chan’s. “I won’t be killed, if that’s what you’re asking.” There’s a bit of humor laced into Minho’s voice that Chan’s not quite sure what to make of. “Kim Ilseong’s not in the habit of killing people off before they can pay back their debt.”

He hums. That makes things... if not more complicated, then more inconvenient. People in debt are desperate people. “Changbin,” he addresses, finally turning away from Minho to where Changbin is sitting on the couch, laptop propped up in his lap. “Safe house?”

“Probably out of the country,” Changbin finishes. “I’ll see who I can contact on short notice.” 

“Thank you.” He then turns to Jisung, who’s nearly vibrating with nervous energy and bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. “I assume you have a file?”

Jisung blinks, confused for a moment, before his face clears and he cocks his head subtly towards Minho in confirmation. “Yeah, I’ll get that for you.” 

Chan waits for Jisung to scamper out of the room, pulling Jeongin with him, before stepping closer to Minho and lowering his voice until he’s fairly certain Changbin can’t eavesdrop—not that it would matter if he did. “I’m sure you know at this point that I don’t trust you,” he says quietly. Minho only blinks at him, but his lips twitch like he’s resisting a smile. “It seems like Jisung does, so I’m willing to put my faith in you, but I’ll kill you myself if any one of us gets hurt.”

“I expect nothing less,” Minho murmurs back. If nothing else, at least they have this point of understanding.

* * *

  
  


Once they’re settled into their safe house in Hong Kong, Chan pulls Minho aside, folder of information that Jisung had compiled along with Changbin’s new notes clutched in one hand. It’s early in the morning, sun streaming in in thick beams that pool on the wooden floor that Changbin had insisted that they splurge on and silence falling like a thick blanket over their home. Not necessarily the best time for paranoid scrutiny, given that Chan has just spent the night exhaustively checking up on the movements of Kim Ilseong’s men, but there is no other time when so many of them will be tucked away, still sleeping. 

“This is an interrogation,” he warns, sitting Minho on one side of their dining table and claiming the other for himself. “Whatever Jisung asked you, whatever he said—this isn’t that.”

“I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Minho jokes weakly, and it makes Chan simultaneously want to laugh and wince from the sincerity of it. Now that the initial rush of adrenaline and protectiveness has worn off, it’s easier to see the weariness and wariness that settle like a cloak on Minho’s shoulders, the way his shoulders bow under their weight. Minho hasn’t been anything less than completely cooperative, even sleeping on the living room couch where Chan and Changbin could keep an eye on him while they typed away on their computers, and while that’s not a get out of jail free card, Chan can appreciate the gesture.

He opens the folder even though he’s nearly memorized its contents, skimming over the neatly typed information and occasional photo clipped to the pages. Jisung and Changbin had only gone digging on the surface, so the file is thinner than some of the other ones that have crossed Chan’s hands. Judging by the hospital and school records, Minho had been born and raised on the edge of Kim Ilseong’s territory, but nothing that explains why Minho had ended up on the wrong side of the law or falling into Kim Ilseong’s clutches. In fact, the size of his file suggests that he had barely run into law enforcement at all. Police encounters generate a _lot_ of paperwork. 

“I’m sure you’re wondering why,” Minho offers with a quirk of his lips. 

Chan starts. “What?”

“Why Kim Ilseong.” He folds his hands under his chin and cocks his head at Chan, like a curious bird of prey. “He’s well-known for being unsavory, isn’t he?”

“I’m sure you’d know better than me, working under him,” Chan returns calmly.

Minho laughs. It’s more a bark than a laugh, tinged with bitterness, and that more than anything tells Chan about the relationship between this man and Kim Ilseong. “Unfortunately.”

Chan pauses for a moment, but Minho doesn’t offer any elaboration. “You mentioned a debt yesterday,” he says instead. “One that you haven’t paid off yet.”

“You never pay off a debt to Kim Ilseong,” Minho says with a shrug. “He only collects and collects and collects until your life belongs to him.”

Chan narrows his eyes. That type of treatment doesn’t inspire loyalty besides the kind born from desperation, but it doesn’t do anything to suggest that scrutiny from Kim Ilseong and his men will let up any time soon. “And what about yours?”

The crooked smile that appears on Minho’s face only lasts for a second before he sighs deeply and slumps into his elbows. “I did some stupid things as a kid,” he says, looking somewhere to Chan’s side. “Not the kind that you’re thinking of, probably, but the kind where Kim Ilseong could sweep in, take care of the problem for me, and impress upon me just how stupid my decisions were.”

“That still doesn’t explain the life debt.”

“Doesn’t it?” Minho rubs his eyes tiredly. His words come slowly, like black tar through gritted teeth. “He took me under his wing. He gave me money, but just enough to keep me pinned under his control. He gave me jobs, kept my skills sharp, but he was the only one.” The next breath that he takes is just on the edge of shuddery. “It took me... a long time. To realize. Too long, probably. Once I did... I could have run—I should have, right? But it just didn’t seem—I couldn’t—I wasn’t sure...” 

Chan can paint the picture for himself. “Hey,” he says sharply, and feels something in his ribcage clench at the bright eyes that Minho turn on him, something that slots into place and whispers _oh._ He wasn’t expecting to feel it quite so soon, and especially not after half of a conversation, but it’s a sensation that he’s learned to trust. “It doesn’t matter now, okay?” He reaches a hand across the table automatically, before realizing that Minho isn’t Jisung or Felix, doesn’t necessarily take comfort in the touch of someone else, and leaves his hand palm up between them instead. “Whatever you were before— _who_ ever you were before—you can leave that behind. You’re with us now. And we protect our own.”

Minho smiles that crooked smile again, one corner of his lips pulling up enough to reveal a flash of teeth. He reaches out, slowly but with a certainty that leaves no doubt in Chan’s mind, and gently slips his fingers between Chan’s own. “And am I one of yours now?”

An answering smile grows on Chan’s face, one that he hopes says _you are seen_ and _you have a place here_ and _welcome_ all at once. “Aren’t you?”

And Minho laughs.

* * *

Chan never stops keeping an eye on Kim Ilseong. Even between stops in Hanoi and Bangkok and Singapore, in between fitting the pieces of Minho’s story together like a puzzle and watching him slowly make a place for himself within their family, he keeps up to date on Kim Ilseong’s movements, even beyond what it takes to make sure that they aren’t being tracked. 

Because the thing is, Chan knows how these types of situations work. Minho can put his time under Kim Ilseong’s thumb behind him, Kim Ilseong can stop sending men after them, but neither of them will forget. And neither will Chan. It will always be a blemish, a _what if,_ a glance over the shoulder, and Chan doesn’t like leaving loose ends.

So he keeps one ear to the ground. The occasional update comes in from Changbin, supplemented by messages from his contacts in Korea, and it’s enough to keep him mollified for a while. It doesn’t feel complete, it’s not a resolution, but his family comes first. Always.

Mostly, he puts the information into action by gently steering them away; he takes a job in Berlin instead of Amsterdam, uses their apartment in Toronto instead of New York. Seungmin gives him a knowing look when he unlocks the door and Changbin huffs a laugh when he hands Chan his reports, but no one says a word about it.

It’s when they’re regrouping with Felix, Hyunjin, and Jeongin in Daegu that he gets word of Kim Ilseong resurfacing from whichever hole he’d crawled into, that he’ll be in Incheon meeting with Lee Eunsoo on neutral ground to negotiate their terms for the coming quarter. It’ll be taking place in a casino that Chan is familiar with, one that’s well-known for harboring shadier deals and attracting certain clientele, and more importantly, one that’s obnoxiously easy to infiltrate if you know who to talk to and are friends with the workers there. 

He glances across the room at Minho, whose eyes are finally crinkling when he laughs, who reaches out first instead of waiting for Jisung to nudge him, who unerringly turns now and locks eyes with Chan, sending him a bright smile that bears no resemblance to the crooked one he’d seen when Minho had first slinked into their lives. 

Chan smiles back, feeling his decision fall into place as easily as he’d reached his hand out that day and felt Minho grasp on. A plan is already starting to form in his mind, one that makes his heart beat harder in anticipation and a grin rise to his face unbidden. “Hey guys, how do you feel about heading to Incheon?”

**Author's Note:**

> that casino is 100% the casino from the all in mv
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/yersin_a) | [tumblr](https://littlenookofnonsense.tumblr.com/) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/yersin_a)


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